


ride your local time loop to escape responsibilities

by kkamagui



Category: Dead Cells (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Spoilers, what
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23944621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kkamagui/pseuds/kkamagui
Summary: Damn. They didn’t remember. Their memories felt as mushy as their body’s rotted innards.The piles of their previous, wasted bodies were testament enough to how bad they were at staying alive. Bad at living, bad at dying and also bad at remembering why the hell they were doing any of this in the first place.
Kudos: 47





	ride your local time loop to escape responsibilities

**Author's Note:**

> yea

* * *

SINGLE, AMBER GLINT IN THE DARK. BECKONING. 

IN THE DEPTHS—BLOOD AND FLESH OF ANCIENTS, NEVER MEANT FOR MANKIND.

A ONE-EYED MONSTER? NO, A MIRROR. REFLECTION. GOLDEN-EYED GLINT—

WAKE UP—

* * *

—supposed to be dead.

As things were, they were rolling around through a maze of pipes, somehow knowing where to turn and drop. Somehow, through the terror of an island alive and its lifeblood, managed to drop where their last(?) moments were spent. Strange that they knew the island’s plumbing system more than whatever the hell they were doing.

In the cavernous silence, they almost missed the dead giant’s company. At least they could have been dead, or not so dead, together. Kind of romantic, but not really. What kind of sick bastard would put them in the same room, anyway?

Mostly blind, they reached out to the coldness of a still body. It was somehow always there for them, like they never left in the first place. Like nothing ever happened. Like everything was a sickening, nightmarish joke.

Well, a body was a body. Theirs for the, er, inhabiting.

Perception bent and snapped, fizzled through their existence like fire, ice and everything in between. The world warped, sharpened into focus and feeling and sight. Arms and legs, check. Curiously ever-present weapons, check.

As for the head... They could work on that.

* * *

Despite everything, the island never really stayed the same. Or maybe they just had terrible recollection and awareness. Half the time they couldn’t recognize that their body was no more until the memories stopped flashing before their eye. 

Then they would have to crawl, half-blind, through sewage and rot until they could feel the blessed silence again.

Did it matter whose memories they were? All that mattered was that they were bone-chilling, cruel, illness-inflicted terrors. Fear and madness. At least, that was what the memories felt like. If they had to deal with that every waking moment, they probably would lose their mind, too. 

Right, well. Whoever this King was, they were an asshole. Making them go through all this work. Having them tidy up after someone who was dead, or supposed to be. Dead only in body? Dead in mind or heart or only in name? Who knew what the King’s right hand beast was guarding, but it looked as unmoving as a corpse.

Maybe it wasn’t? Eh, what they did know about dead bodies. The King surely was dead now, even though nothing had changed.

As far as they knew, the island was in stasis. An eternal, accursed loop. Well, it felt like it was, more or less. Did the Time Keeper even know how to end it? Was it possible for her, in all her young/old/foolish/wizened power to keep the world at bay?

They mused that it was not. She was as much of a victim of the vicious cycle as the rest of the island and its residents. Perhaps she just wanted to stay alive, for whatever living the same day over and over was worth.

The Time Keeper meant to banish them, of course. Perhaps without them everything would return to its linear course. Not that it would ever work—they couldn’t even die properly. Not since—since—

Damn. They didn’t remember. Their memories felt as mushy as their body’s rotted innards.

The piles of their previous, wasted bodies were testament enough to how bad they were at staying alive. Bad at living, bad at dying and also bad at remembering why the hell they were doing any of this in the first place. They really _were_ talented.

How did the Collector and his weird friends even find those bodies anyway? There was something sinister in that. It seemed it was only them, headless and clueless, stuck cycling through from the depths to the peaks again and again. 

In a way, rolling around and through danger was somewhat exhilarating. They didn’t really know the reasons why that was. Seemed like it would be better than sitting on a throne all day, exalted and praised and burdened by responsibility. 

It was not like they had anything better to do, they supposed. They were meant for bashing heads and finding treasure (and what was up with those awful, mouthy treasure chests? Who gave those bastards the right to talk like that? Gave them the shivers), not for solving problems through thinking or alchemy, or whatever eerie business the Collector conducted in those conveniently coincidental lairs.

And maybe against their better judgement, they preferred to listen to someone at least half-sane over dozens of flesh-hungry beasts. Just for a little while.

* * *

A SKELETAL GRIN AND SUNKEN, SUNKEN, EMPTY EYES. TEETH CRACKING, FALLING, OPENING UP A MAW OF VOID AND—

_MY KING... YOU..._

* * *

Oh. _Ohhhh_. They were the one responsible for all of their own problems. That changed some things, and also did not. 

Knowing the visceral memories were _theirs_ , well, stunk in all sorts of ways. But it was not like they were doing a great job of remembering much of anything in the first place. The Giant, being the unhelpful, towering fool he was, did not exactly provide any useful tips. Instead, he just sunk back into his terrible lava bath, bemoaning the end of days. Typical.

Though there had to be a point where the universe would stop spinning, they were still suspended in the awful loop of jumping from corpse to corpse. Chugging foul alchemic brew as temporary keep-thy-body-hale-and-hearty solutions. Slinking around the old pipes until they emerged to yet another woefully, wonderfully headless body.

Unfortunately for them, wielding weapons did not go so great without limbs and dextrous extremities. As time went on, or didn’t, it also became more difficult to keep the bodies together. Every subsequent, fiercely glowing crimson eye made each short-lived excursion ever more fraught with peril and terrible beasts.

And as time didn’t go, or did, the Time Keeper was also unhelpful. Downright meddlesome, even.

Atop the clock tower, the world was a little strange in that nothing really felt real. In the underbelly of what used to be the island’s livelihood, the cloying smell of poison and mold made every bit of their skin itch. The castle was… all right. A little too gaudy and pompous, and also filled with murderous knight-beasts. Not to mention the shattered forms of the incomplete suspended in tubes, lining the halls in morbid ceremony. 

The caverns and lava, past all the creatures and remnants of cruel practice, were rather solemn. Those infestuous crystals glowed like haunted rubies and dreams. Just a few shades darker, and they would almost be the same color as blood.

Before heading in for yet another civilized conversation with the useless Giant, they dug their hands into the still-warm remains of an unfortunate corpse. The bright, glinting blue was not hard to find and fell, like fleshy marbles, into their palms. The cells were kind of squishy.

Gross. 

* * *


End file.
